The Most Mishandled Child Murder In Our State’s History
The Most Mishandled Child Murder In Our State’s History
Today we are talking about one of the most notorious child murders in the state of Maine, a murder that was talked about by every well-meaning parent that was caught up in the stranger-danger panic of the ’80s and ’90s. When I was in elementary school and we had somebody come in for a stranger-safety talk, they told us this very story. Some people still consider this case to be unsolved, and whether you believe that or not, there’s a theme in this story that tends to fall in line with many other murders we’ve covered that take place in the state of Maine, especially around the era this one took place: that’s Maine law enforcement’s tendency to want to open and shut a murder case as quickly as possible, giving off the impression that they don’t consider all relevant evidence that’s in front of them, just pursuing the most likely suspect that makes sense for a jury to convict. I would definitely love to hear what you think about it at the end of this video.
With this controversial piece aside, we are in Auburn, Maine, and this is the grave of Sarah Cherry. Sarah was only 12 years old when she was abducted, barbarically assaulted, and murdered about 30 minutes from here. Now, Sarah’s murder shocked the community, and while most people around here don’t like talking about it, it is one that people are very familiar with and grew up hearing about. There is, however, one person who is still loudly talking about it to this day, and that is the man convicted of Sarah’s murder.
Sarah Cherry was born on May 6, 1976, to her father Gilbert Austin and her mother Deborah Cherry. It is unclear how long Sarah’s biological parents were together. By the time of our story, Deborah was remarried to a man named Christopher Crossman; they lived in Bowdoin, Maine, and Sarah’s biological father lived in Lisbon, Maine, where I grew up. Sarah also had a younger sister named Hillary. Sarah grew into an honor student who also enjoyed sports, being outdoors, and caring for small children. She was part of the school chorus and played baseball, basketball, soccer, and cross-country skiing. She was also involved in the Girl Scouts, the YMCA summer camps, and a youth fellowship at her church. She also loved heavy metal.
In the summer of 1988, she had just graduated from sixth grade at Bowdoin Central School and was preparing to go to middle school in the fall. Now, Sarah was becoming more mature, and her parents were beginning to trust her with more and more responsibilities. She was just beginning to babysit now that she was 12—this was a rite of passage that many of us experienced in our early teen years or even as a pre-teen like Sarah. I mean, hell, we even had a whole book series that revolved around it.
Sarah’s mom, Deborah, was very involved and protective of her daughter. Before she left her daughter home alone, she would give her several safety reminders; the two big ones were: do not open the door for strangers, and don’t tell anyone that you’ll be home alone.
On July 6, 1988, Sarah was excited for her second-ever babysitting job. She had been recommended to the Hankle family when the mother, Jennifer Hankle, got called into work unexpectedly; their daycare was closed for the week, and their regular babysitters were unavailable. Sarah was looking forward to spending the day with their adorable 10-month-old daughter. John Hankle picked her up that morning, and they arrived at the Hankle home around 8:45 in the morning. Jennifer was a bit unsure about such a young girl watching her baby, but Sarah came highly recommended. Jennifer gave Sarah the last-minute instructions for the baby’s daily needs and left shortly after 9:00. Before Jennifer left the house, she left the stroller outside in case Sarah wanted to take the baby for a walk on the sunny day. She also left the doors unlocked so that if Sarah went outside with the baby, she wouldn’t accidentally lock herself out. She told Sarah that she would be back at 4:00 that afternoon.
Jennifer called around lunchtime to check in. Sarah told her that everything was going well and she was just feeding the baby lunch; she also said she was about to make herself some hot dogs. Feeling better after talking to Sarah, Jennifer got off the phone and finished her workday. Jennifer was glad when she got out of work earlier than expected and was able to go home and check on her baby. She arrived home around 3:20, and the first thing she noticed at the top of her long 200-foot driveway was a strange notebook and a receipt lying on the ground.
As she approached the house, she noticed that the stroller had not been moved and the front door was ajar. When she entered the house, she saw Sarah’s jacket, glasses, sneakers, and socks all in the living room. The TV was turned on with the volume turned down low, but Sarah wasn’t watching it. Jennifer went upstairs and found her baby napping in the crib, but still didn’t see Sarah. After searching through the house, she realized Sarah wasn’t there. The first person she called was her husband; he suggested that perhaps she had gone to someone’s house, so she should try to call Sarah’s parents and her friends first. However, no one had heard from Sarah. Sarah’s mother, Deborah, came to the Hankle house while Jennifer continued to make phone calls, finally calling the sheriff’s department when she ran out of other options.
Deputy Leo Scopino was the first to respond to the scene. When Deputy Scopino arrived on the scene, he took the notebook and the receipt from Jennifer. The receipt turned out to be a car repair estimate for a Toyota pickup truck. The notebook was a farmer’s journal with notes about crops and planting schedules. Both items had one name on them: Dennis DeShane. In a very odd move, Deputy Scopino chose to use the notebook to take notes with while he was in the Hankle home, with Dennis’s name in the beginning description of the vehicle.
Deputy Scopino called the station to have them run the vehicle and get a more complete description. As soon as they had that description, he broadcasted to all local officers that they were looking for a red Toyota pickup registered to Dennis DeShane. They were also searching for a missing girl, Sarah Cherry, whom he described as being 12 years old, 5 feet tall, 93 pounds, with blonde hair, blue eyes, wearing blue jeans and a light purple tank top. He reported that she was likely barefoot, as her shoes were still in the home.
Now, Sarah’s parents immediately suspected foul play. Sarah had very sensitive feet, so they said there’d be no way she left the house without her shoes on. In addition, she was very responsible, so it was unimaginable that she would have left a baby alone in the house by choice. However, there was no sign of a struggle. Soon, the working assumption was that she must have left willingly, perhaps with someone she recognized, or if someone was threatening her with a weapon.
Now, the other thing to note about the Hankle home was that it wasn’t a house that you could just easily sneak up on. Their driveway was long, and two windows in the living room overlook the driveway. If Sarah had been watching TV, she’d have clearly seen any approaching vehicles. In addition, the family had some hound dogs that went wild anytime a strange vehicle pulled in, so Sarah would have definitely seen or heard someone if they were approaching the house.
The police drove one town over to the farm owned by Dennis DeShane in Bingham, Maine, but he wasn’t home. They found his wife, Nancy, there, who did not know where Dennis was. She asked why the police were looking for them; they would not tell her. A few hours later, police were still searching for both Dennis and Sarah. A local couple was on their way home when they noticed a man they didn’t know walking across the lawn of their mother’s house. They pulled over to ask if he needed help; he said he had gotten lost in the woods while fishing and couldn’t find his truck. They offered to help him look, but just had to stop at home real quick first.
On the drive to their house, he told them his name was Dennis DeShane, and then he falsely told the couple that he lived in Yarmouth and worked for L.L. Bean. He said he had been driving around looking for a fishing hole but couldn’t find his truck after he got turned around in the woods. Asked where his fishing gear was, he said he left it in the woods after he realized he couldn’t find his truck. He claimed to find his way out by following the sound of a generator that someone was running at their home nearby. Dennis attempted to describe where he had left his truck, but when the man took him to where he thought it would be, it was not there. They drove around for about 45 minutes before they came across police cruisers on the road.
In the meantime, the woman who had been in the car with Dennis heard his name come across the police scanner she listened to in her kitchen. She called the police to tell them that the man they were looking for was in the car with her husband. When they came across the cruiser, the man who was helping Dennis suggested that he’d get out and see if the police could help him look for his vehicle. Dennis agreed and thanked the man for his help. Dennis climbed out of the vehicle and right into the cruiser at around 8:45 p.m. on July 6.
Dennis willingly supplied his name to the officer who had been out patrolling for him in his truck. Dennis was also honest about where he lived and admitted that he had left his truck unlocked with the keys in it. He still stuck to his story about fishing, however; that wasn’t true. He would later say he had actually been out in the woods that day getting high. He had purchased some speed from someone in a museum bathroom in Boston. His wife had caught him using drugs in the past and threatened to leave if she caught him again. Not wanting to get in trouble for doing illegal drugs, he stuck to that fishing story.
However, once in the car, it quickly became clear that Dennis had walked into a situation that he was not prepared for. The officer knew exactly who he was and quickly started grilling him about a missing girl. Dennis claimed he had no idea what they were talking about; he told them he had left his keys in the truck, gone fishing, and got lost. Dennis would later say that the officer’s aggressive nature made him fear for his life, and considering that he was still high at the time and trying to hide it, he was probably even more scared. As he was sitting in the cruiser, he realized that he still had his car keys in his pocket and attempted to hide them under the seat. Later, he claimed that this was because he was so scared of telling the officers the truth and being verbally attacked again.
Dennis was in a cruiser in the woods with the police for about 6 hours. While he was with the officers, his truck was located off of Dead River Road, about 100 feet down a logging road. It was clearly visible from the main drag, but somehow had not been noticed earlier by any of the officers or volunteers out searching for Sarah and Dennis. At this point, the police had made it quite clear to Dennis that they believed he had taken and possibly killed Sarah. Dennis continued to deny this, and he appeared willing to do anything he could to convince them of his innocence. They located his truck; they asked if they had permission to seize and search his vehicle. He turned it over willingly. Later, when asked if he would come to the station to be photographed, he quickly agreed.
They brought him to the station around 3:20 a.m. and took several photographs of him. Dennis’s clothes were fairly clean, other than a few handprints on his shoulders; he explained that those were from swatting bugs as he walked in the woods. He had a few small bruises and scratches on his arms and knuckles—one was clearly a track mark from using drugs, while he claimed others were from walking through the brush. In the pictures, Dennis shows no sign of previously being in a struggle; his appearance was very clean, with no blood or tears or rips in his clothing whatsoever.
He was dropped off by police at his house around 4:20 a.m. to his wife, who had heard nothing of his whereabouts while he was with the police. As soon as he was home, he admitted that he had been using drugs, and he explained that the police thought he was connected to a missing girl.
Meanwhile, back at Dennis’s truck, the officers conducted an initial visual search. It was noted that there were several items in the bed of the truck related to the farm he ran, such as rope and bags of grain. The cap of the truck was messy; the passenger seat was piled with papers and trash that spilled off the seat and onto the floor. It is noted in one place that it looks as if someone had sat on the papers. There was also some vegetation caught in one of the doors that was not consistent with the area that the truck was found.
The sheriff’s office brought in a search and rescue dog to see if they could find Sarah’s scent. They used a paper bag containing Sarah’s jacket, socks, and sneakers from the Hankle home. The dog first followed the track from the driver’s door and headed into the woods about 150 feet until it came to a bog, then he looped around and returned back to the truck. The handler then guided him to the passenger door, where he picked up another scent track. This trail led the dog across the road and into the woods in the opposite direction of his first track; he then crossed the stream, turned around, and headed south. At this point, he stopped tracking. It is noted in some places that they thought he was following a deer trail and then he got spooked when he heard the deer. The report said there was a commotion in the woods that spooked the dog. Assuming they were just hearing a deer, the handler brought the dog back to the truck. It’s unclear if either track that the dog followed was Sarah’s scent, and the dog didn’t seem to alert to her scent on the truck.
The truck was then seized and taken to the Maine State Crime Lab to be inspected. The detectives inventoried everything in the truck; there were 178 items in the truck that did not have Dennis’s name on them. The list included things like broken sunglasses, empty cigarette packs, loose change, styrofoam cups, a yellow memo pad, a jackknife, etc.
We would like to take a minute and tell you about Dennis’s life before this event. Dennis’s family was from New Brunswick, Canada, but he was actually born across the border in Madawaska, Maine, because that was the closest hospital. He was the youngest of four brothers. He grew up in a wonderful family with loving parents and awesome brothers. His mother died when he was around 9 or 10 years old; just a few years after that, his father died when he was around 14 or 15. After their deaths, he was raised by his older brother Philip. It was noted by locals that he seemed to be an average student and didn’t get into any trouble whatsoever. He was always kind, quiet, and well-mannered, though he sometimes needed a little encouragement in the right direction. He was described as having average intelligence by the people in his community, however, he would later have an IQ test in college that put him in the 80th percentile. One person described him as a “mind my own business” kind of guy.
Dennis went to college after graduating high school; his first degree was in agriculture, and his second degree was in French. Being from Madawaska, much of the population there is bilingual, speaking both English and French, often switching back and forth during a conversation. Down here in Lewiston, we refer to that as “Franglais,” and many of us grew up with relatives speaking it in the home. In college, he met his future wife, Nancy. After graduation, his plan was to go to Japan to teach French and English to Japanese businessmen. However, Nancy wanted to go to grad school, and they realized if they both followed those paths, they would likely never see each other again. So instead, the couple decided to stay in Maine to be together.
They ended up buying a farm in Bingham, and they were married shortly afterwards. They had greenhouses where they grew vegetables that they sold in their produce stand, and they also sold maple syrup, jams, and honey. They raised chickens, though it’s unclear if they sold the chickens or if this was for their own consumption. It was noted on many occasions that Dennis was too gentle to slaughter the birds himself. At that time, it cost about $1.50 to have each bird processed by a butcher, so initially Dennis attempted to slaughter them himself to save the money; however, he just couldn’t stomach it. After he killed the first bird, he gave up and decided they’d have to pay someone else to do it. The couple had built themselves a wholesome life, and they were looking forward to starting a family together.
As the sun came up on July 7th, no one was able to sleep. Sarah’s family was waiting for news of their little girl, officers were searching the woods, and Dennis and his wife were awake, unsure of what to do next. The search was in full force as Thursday began: police, game wardens, volunteers from many surrounding towns, the Coast Guard, and Navy personnel came into assist in the search. National Guard helicopters flew over treetops searching with heat-sensing detectors. People canvassed the woods in the sweltering July heat.
Police spent Thursday knocking on every single house door on Lewis Hill Road where the Hankles lived. Many neighbors were asked about sightings of the red pickup truck. There were several people who noted that they had seen it driving by a couple times on July 6th; they noted that on some occasions it seemed to be going too fast. Another person said that a small red pickup had pulled into her driveway and then turned around and drove away; she noted that it was driven by a man, and in the passenger seat was either a girl or a small woman.
Early Thursday morning, after giving up on sleep, Nancy got up and went to work while Dennis stayed home. Some sources claim that he was under surveillance for this entire time, but it is unclear if that meant police surveillance or if his whereabouts were being accounted for by other people, like his wife or the boarder that lived in their home. Nancy got to work; she asked around about a good lawyer. Her boss suggested George Carlton, who had done some work for their company. Dennis and Nancy were at his office before noon that same day. When they left, Dennis returned home, and Nancy attempted to return to work. However, she was unable to focus, so she went home to be with her husband.
Police stopped by Dennis’s house around 2:00 p.m. that afternoon, informed them that he had hired a lawyer, and all future communication would be going through him. The police stood down, so they left him alone. Dennis reported that he sat on the porch with his wife, racking his brain. He was trying to figure out if it was possible that in his drug-induced state he could have done this and had no memory of it. At some point, Dennis saw Sarah’s picture on the news and thought if anything would jog his memory, it would be seeing her photo. However, he would later claim her picture on the news just made him more sure that he had never seen the little girl in his life.
That same day, a volunteer found two sets of footprints on a dirt road nearby; one set was a large set of footprints, and the other was a small child-sized set of footprints made by someone with bare feet. The prints led to a trailer on what would later be referred to as Fickett Road. This trailer was owned by Jason Fickett, a man who is currently being investigated for the assault of a different 12-year-old girl. The officers arrived to look at the area and decided that it wasn’t relevant to the case without even going into the trailer. The same man would later be convicted of assaulting an 11-year-old and a 12-year-old in the two years prior to Sarah’s disappearance. He would also be arrested again in 2005 for abducting a 14-year-old girl.
A call was made to a local game warden to report the footprints; he said he’d bring in dogs the next day, but it’s unclear if that ever happened. It’s also important to note that the officer who deemed it not relevant was the same officer investigating the man on his other charges; in fact, he had interviewed him just three weeks prior, so he knew that he had targeted girls Sarah’s age.
Volunteers and officers searched all day without any luck. Finally, at 9:30 p.m. on Thursday, the main search parties broke for the night.
At 8:00 a.m. Friday morning, the primary detective on the case, Detective Hensby, met the Assistant Attorney General, Eric Wright, at the district court in Bath to get search warrants for Dennis DeShane’s truck and home. At this point, even without proof that Sarah was still in the state or any proof to whether she was alive or dead, it appeared that the investigators had already made up their mind. Eric Wright told the policeman, “We’ll try him for murder whether we find the body or not; we’ve won murder trials without a body before.” This is a direct quote.
While Searchers went back out to look for Sarah, her parents were still in complete distress without any sign of their little girl. Dennis also stayed home at their farm and waited for news. Nancy attempted to go to work, but after being unable to focus, she again returned home around 1:00 p.m. When she got back, Dennis had some news: just before noon, Sarah’s body had been found. Led by Warden Barry Woodward, a group of 18 volunteers from the Naval Air Station in Brunswick were performing close-quarter searches. The team stood close together and walked through the forest in a line, making sure not to miss anything. On their eighth pass, one of the searchers called out that he found something.
It was Sarah’s body. She was mostly covered with leaves and sticks, with just the top of her head showing. Her blonde hair was visible to the approaching searchers as well as police when they arrived on the scene. She was cold to the touch and did not respond. Her body was a few hundred yards from where Dennis’s truck had been found two days before, about 3 and a half miles from the location where she had gone missing. Now, Dennis knew that the police would come and arrest him because he was the most logical suspect; with the body near his truck and his papers in her driveway, what else would they think?
Now, around 3:00, two officers arrived in a cruiser. Dennis met them in the driveway and said, “I heard the news, and I know why you’re here.” Instead of being immediately arrested, he was first served with a search warrant. The officers asked if Dennis would be willing to help them locate specific items on the list. Instead of them searching through the whole house, they wanted Dennis’s sneakers and the clothes he had worn the day that Sarah went missing. The clothes he had worn that day had already been washed, but Dennis was able to bring them the sneakers he had worn.
When asked about any weapons or knives that Dennis might have around regularly, Nancy mentioned that Dennis kept a small penknife on his keychain. However, that knife was not found on Dennis’s keys or anywhere in the house. Dennis told investigators that he hadn’t been carrying that penknife for several months; however, it was never found by investigators, and therefore they assumed he had disposed of it to get rid of evidence. Dennis would later say that he believed wholeheartedly if he had just welcomed the police and complied with their every demand, they would find the truth—that he was innocent. As the police searched the house, Dennis kept repeating things to the effect of, “I just don’t think I could do something like this.” In some reports, Dennis said, “There’s no way I could do this; someone else inside of me must have done it.” However, any phrase in that ballpark was not on video or audio recorded, and was only written down by officers, or sometimes not even that.
After arriving at the police station, Dennis was fingerprinted and photographed. Afterwards, he was escorted to wash the ink off his fingertips, and the officer supervising him claimed that Dennis began making comments that would lean toward an admission of guilt. The official report of Detective Mark Westrom quotes Dennis as saying, “I don’t know whatever made me do that, and I can’t believe it happened,” as well as, “Please believe me, something inside me made me do that.”
At this point, Dennis had requested a lawyer, and his lawyer was in the building but hadn’t yet been brought into the room. According to the police report, the detective told Dennis several times that he did not have to say anything without his lawyer present, but Dennis just kept talking. According to the detective, he said, “I didn’t think it actually happened until I saw her face on the news, and then it all came back. I remember it. What punishment could they ever give me that would equal what I’ve done? I wish I had never gone down that road that day; why couldn’t my truck have broke down somewhere instead? I told my attorney I remember being on the dirt road and coming out of the woods, but nothing else at all. This shouldn’t have happened to me; why did I let this happen?”
Again, these are all statements that one officer claimed to hear when no one else was around to confirm it. Nothing like this was ever said in an official capacity on a recording or in a signed confession. It should also be noted that in 2008, Mark Westrom, now the Sagadahoc County Sheriff, was accused of sexually harassing a drug investigator who alleged that Sheriff Westrom touched him inappropriately. Although the sheriff called the allegations ridiculous, he resigned the same year and took up a post as a jail administrator, and was later arrested twice for drunk driving. Make of that information what you will.
By 2:00 p.m., Sarah’s body was with the medical examiner in Augusta being autopsied. At the crime scene, the 12-year-old was buried under 5 to 6 inches of foliage—the amount would later be described as approximately two trash bags full. Under her head was enough blood to suggest that she was actively bleeding in that location, not just dumped there postmortem. The estimate based on her state of rigor mortis was that she had been dead approximately 30 to 36 hours. At the time of her autopsy, the medical examiner did note that there was not much fly activity as one would expect to see on a body that had been in the Maine woods for two days, especially in July.
It is important to talk about how rigor mortis works, because this would become a major point of contention in Dennis’s trial. Now, typically rigor begins to set in about 2 hours after death. It begins in the muscles of the face and then progresses to the limbs over the next few hours; it will take over the whole body sometime between 6 and 12 hours after death. The body will stay in this state for about 12 to 18 hours until the stiffness starts to dissipate. It will again begin in the smaller muscles of the face and slowly relax until the large muscles and joints are released at last. This breaking of rigor mortis is usually complete around 30 to 36 hours after death.
It’s also important to note that these times are estimates and can vary depending on many factors. If it is very cold outside, or a person dies in a relaxed state like during sleep, rigor mortis will often move much more slowly. The inverse has also been noted: if someone has exercised vigorously or struggled right before death, rigor mortis will set in faster. This is often observed in people who drowned or were otherwise fighting for their lives. In addition, if it is hot or humid out, as was in our case, it will move faster. It is noted by the National Library of Medicine that in areas with hot weather, the body may be completely corrupted or decomposing within 24 hours.
When Sarah’s body was found, she was lying on her back with most of her torso turned to the left. Her legs were bent upward and were laying to the left as well. Her hands were tied tightly in front of her with yellow rope. When found, she was wearing a shirt and a bra, and her bra had been pushed up. Her jeans were pulled down past her knees, and she wasn’t wearing any underwear. She had a blue bandana stuffed in her mouth as a gag. There was also a wool scarf tied around her mouth to hold the gag in place, and wrapped tightly around her neck and knotted twice. The scarf was wrapped so tightly that her neck had been constricted down to the diameter of 2.5 to 3 inches.
She was also found with birch sticks protruding from her privates, both in the front and the back; they had penetrated about 4 inches. The level of bleeding in that area showed that she had been alive when she was violated with the sticks. Sarah had also suffered many superficial stab wounds: one under her chin, eight on her head and neck, and a cluster around her left breast. There was also the mark of something sharp being dragged across her throat. All the wounds had been inflicted while she was alive and were not deep enough to cause death. The contents of her stomach were consistent with the lunch of hot dogs, as Sarah had attested to; the level of digestion would typically suggest that she was killed a few hours after eating them.
During the autopsy, blood was noted under Sarah’s fingernails, so all of her nails were clipped as evidence. In addition, a rape kit was performed to look for male DNA and other physical evidence. At the crime scene, some pink fibers were found on a tree nearby that were not consistent with anything in Dennis’s truck or home. On Sarah’s body, several light brown hairs were found; these hairs were inconsistent with Sarah and were never compared to Dennis’s dark brown hairs by the investigators. Dennis’s clothes from that day had already been laundered, so no evidence was pulled from his shirt or pants. His shoes were seized and found to have some very minuscule traces of blood on them, however, those traces were so small that it was impossible to tell if it was human blood or not.
Dogs were brought back to the scene to help search for evidence. Two nights prior, when the search dog had been used, it had stopped tracking about 75 feet away from where Sarah’s body would be found. There is speculation about why this happened: there is the theory that the dog was spooked by a deer; another theory was that as he scented Sarah’s body—which would have smelled different than her clothes—it spooked the dog (this dog was not trained as a cadaver dog, so the smell of a dead body could have thrown it off); the third theory is that the noise they heard was not actually a deer, but rather the struggle between Sarah and her murderer. On July 8th, the new dog who was brought in found a piece of yellow rope on the ground about halfway between where Sarah had been found and the previous location of Dennis’s truck.
Meanwhile, Dennis was back at the station as the only suspect the police had right from the start. The police were convinced that they had their man. Dennis kept proclaiming his innocence as police began to test his truck and look for evidence. He was noted by many people as saying, “This shouldn’t have happened,” or “How could this have happened?” over and over. He is also remembered as stating several times that he must have been framed; he believed that someone must have taken the items from his truck and left them in the driveway to divert attention away from themselves. Dennis later said he felt like the police didn’t want to look stupid after picking their candidate, so they just kept pushing forward even when they may have had doubts about him.
Dennis was officially arrested and charged on July 8th with the murder of Sarah Cherry. He was held without bail. He was later charged with five separate crimes: intentional or knowing murder, depraved indifference murder, kidnapping, and two counts of gross sexual conduct.
Saturday, one of the detectives received a call from a private investigator named Ron Moren in Madawaska, where Dennis was from, he said he had previously gotten a tip from a psychic who helped him find a body. Now, the same psychic had called him to tell him that she was getting vibes about the Sarah Cherry case. She said they had arrested the right subject and that he was now saying it shouldn’t have happened; she said that he just kept repeating that.
Dennis soon decided that his original lawyer, George Carlton, was not the person he wanted representing him. He ended up obtaining the services of Tom Connelly. That fall, Dennis underwent a psychological evaluation. This evaluation was videotaped, so we know for certain what he said during that time, unlike the other conversations recorded only in writing and police reports. Dennis admitted to using drugs and also said that he felt he had been convinced by police that he had committed the murder the day he was picked up and interviewed. He admitted that when he had first been picked up to look for his truck, he was still high. Though he admitted to not remembering all the details, he said that he saw Sarah’s picture in the paper and he absolutely did not recognize her at all. He felt he would have experienced some memory shock if he had been the one to kill her. He was determined to be completely of sound mind.
The state of Maine moved fast in this case. On our channel, we often see many cases take two to four years before they make it to trial, but Dennis’s trial began just eight months after Sarah’s death. Leading up to the trial, Dennis says he maintained a lot of faith that the justice system would find him innocent. After all, when all of the gathering of physical evidence was done, there was not a single thing that directly put Dennis at the scene. There was also no evidence that placed Sarah in his truck. After an incredibly extensive cataloging of all items, deep vacuuming, and fingerprinting, there was not a single hair, fiber, fingerprint, drop of blood, or anything else that could prove Sarah was ever in Dennis’s truck.
In addition, there were not any fingerprints found inside the cab of the truck at all. This seems odd, as we leave fingerprints everywhere as we move throughout our regular days; the only reasonable explanation seems to be that the cab was wiped down ahead of time. There were a few fingerprints taken from the exterior of his truck; some were from Dennis, but there was one that did not match Dennis or Sarah. That fingerprint was never explained or identified.
There were also similar results with Sarah’s body and the crime scene. Other than the papers at the Hankle house, there was no evidence that Dennis had ever been present at the home. There were a few unidentified fingerprints on the door handle, but again, they were never matched to anybody. At the crime scene, there were also the hairs on Sarah’s body that did not match Dennis or Sarah, as well as the pink fiber.
In addition, the blood under her fingernails was mostly used in a blood typing test back in 1988. Regular crime scene investigation didn’t even allow detectives to determine if a blood sample was male or female; they could only determine what blood type it was. It was determined that under the eight nails they tested, all of the blood was type A. Sarah was type A and Dennis was type O. They made the assumption that the blood was hers. In addition, they did not find any skin scrapings or other debris that would suggest she got the blood under her nails by gouging her attacker. This also led them to believe the blood must be hers, leaving her two thumbnails as the only remaining option for testing.
As Dennis got closer and closer to the trial and realized the state was not going to back down, he began looking for other tests. At the time, DNA testing as we know it was just beginning in California and was highly experimental. Several times between November and January, Dennis had conversations with various members of the team about this testing as an option. Now, Dennis knew that this was not within the state’s capabilities, so he even offered to pay for it himself. He finally went to the judge to request that he be allowed to have the nails tested, but he was met with resistance. The judge decided the lab in California was still too experimental. In addition, they had a backlog of work that could mean the results did not get back to Maine for four to six months. The judge said it was simply not fair to Sarah’s family and the concerned community to delay the trial that long, so the thumbnails stayed out of their reach.
As the trial continued to get closer, Dennis and Tom continued to work on theories about who else could have committed the murder. To Dennis and his team, it seemed like there were several more likely suspects who either knew Sarah or had a criminal history that would more closely align with this type of crime. After all, Dennis didn’t even have so much as a speeding ticket. They felt that if they were able to present a plausible second suspect, that would introduce reasonable doubt to the investigation.
For example, John Hankle, the father of the baby Sarah was babysitting, was not a favorite in the community. Many people who knew both men noted that Dennis was very sweet and wouldn’t hurt a fly, while those same people said that John gave everyone very creepy vibes. Some local waitresses refused to serve him; he often made inappropriate comments or seemed to know things about them that he shouldn’t. For some reason, police did not check on John’s alibi until seven months after Sarah’s disappearance. At that point, they had to rely on vague memories of his co-workers to answer if they remembered him leaving the building for lunch that day.
The defense brought up another possible suspect, a man named Doug Senecal, who had already been indicted for having assaulted Sarah’s stepsister. They explained his possible motive could have been to eliminate a witness in his own case. He also was unable to provide an alibi for the time of her abduction and death—well, he actually supplied three different alibis, but none of them checked out. In addition, several witnesses remember him acting very strangely in the days around Sarah’s murder, and yet another witness remembered seeing his truck in the area that day. The counterargument of the prosecution was that Doug Senecal shouldn’t have had any way of knowing that Sarah was babysitting that day. In addition, there were several other more likely witnesses to Doug Senecal’s case that would have been more likely targets. They also found that nothing in the Department of Human Services case against him mentioned Sarah as a possible witness.
The third option was Jason Fickett, the man who lived in the trailer with the two sets of footprints. He had led a man who was already known for having a history of assaulting girls around Sarah’s age, and he lived very close by. However, when Tom Connelly went to the judge on several occasions to request to enter the counter-evidence or theory of other suspects, he was denied. The jury would never hear those speculations or the evidence that connected Sarah to those people.
In addition, the defense team wasn’t even allowed to access most evidence before the trial. The rope found at the crime scene was never genetically tested or even compared to any suspects; the defense would later state that the prosecution must have known that it wasn’t Dennis’s, otherwise they would have used it as evidence. The defense wasn’t even given access to the coroner’s report or the police notes prior to the trial.
The trial began on March 6, 1989, in Rockland, Maine, 50 miles up the coast from Bowdoin. This choice was made because that courthouse was close to the state prison and also to help find a more impartial jury, though that had proved to be an exceedingly difficult task. As the news coverage on the case had been very widespread and sensationalized, nearly everyone they interviewed knew a lot about the case. The prosecution and defense sorted through 123 potential jurors before finding their 12 jurors and two alternates. Even then, some jurors admitted to seeing the news and thinking the police had the right guy, but they promised to be impartial.
Much of what was shared during the trial we’ve already mentioned, but we also mentioned a lot that did not come out in the trial. Here are a few things we did not touch on yet: during the trial, John Hankle described how he and a neighbor had gone out to search for the truck described on the receipt found in his driveway. He admitted that while it was still light out, he had driven past the little dirt road where Dennis’s truck would later be found, but did not see it, even though a deputy would later say that it was easily visible from the main road. Again, any evidence or theories on the part of the defense to show that someone else could have been the perpetrator was barred by the judge.
In his opening statement, Mr. Wright told the jurors that Dennis had admitted to killing Sarah. These admissions would later be attributed to a few different sources. One source was George Carlton, Dennis’s first lawyer; multiple people would later say that George had told them before the body was found that he knew Sarah was dead and that Dennis had done it. Another source was the statements that police claimed to hear. In all, 47 witnesses testified.
One important witness was the coroner. Now, at the time of the trial, the defense team had not seen any of the autopsy report, or at least not the complete report. During questioning, the coroner was never asked directly for an estimated time of death, nor does the report include it; the autopsy report only says “found on 7/8/88.” The coroner noted that the hot dogs were still in Sarah’s stomach, which would typically mean she had died within three hours of eating that meal. The coroner did note that rigor mortis was just breaking in the joints of her fingers when he performed the autopsy. When asked if he could come to a conclusion about the time of death, he said, and I quote, “The passing of rigor mortis suggested that we are talking probably 30 hours or more, and I do know when she disappeared, and the changes are consistent with that time, consistent with having occurred two days prior.”
In his testimony, he admitted that hot temperatures speed up the process of rigor mortis. He testified that he would have expected to see more fly activity on the body after two days in the woods. He also noted that her body was covered with debris, so perhaps that was why there was no eggs, larvae, or maggots. He described how the small knife wounds could have only been meant to be a form of torture since there were so many and they were very shallow. He noted that they were from a small knife, which would later be criticized; some would say that you cannot determine how small a knife was, as large knives can make small wounds when used correctly.
When cross-examined, the coroner testified that the time of death could be a little elastic in interpretation. He refused to say that she would have been dead between 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. that afternoon, as the prosecution was claiming. He did agree that her death could have occurred much later, even saying that dying at midnight was a possibility.
Dennis testified in his own defense—and this is something we rarely see, as the defendant has the right not to speak throughout the whole trial. Testifying is very risky for a defendant because it changes the focus from the cold, hard evidence to the connection jurors feel to the defendant; if he seems untrustworthy or dishonest with any answers, they will not believe anything he says. Dennis testified that he left his home that day and drove to the back roads. He got out of his car and injected himself with amphetamines, or speed. He then recalled driving down various back roads and stopping a few times to wander through the forest. He remembered stopping near someone’s driveway to urinate, and then at one point he got lost and couldn’t find his truck again. When shown a picture of where his truck was found, he could not confirm or deny if that was the last place he had parked it.
He admitted that he had tried to hide the keys in the police car after being aggressively questioned by the first officer he came in contact with; he hid them out of fear of setting that officer off again. He denied making confession-like statements to the police as they were recorded in the reports. He also testified that he did not abduct, assault, kill, or bury Sarah.
The officers who heard Dennis’s statements the night he was arrested testified, reading directly off their original notes, that Dennis had said, “How could I kill her?” Forensic experts also identified that the rope used to bind Sarah’s hands was consistent with a type of rope in Dennis’s truck. In addition, the other piece found on the ground between her body and the truck could clearly be matched to the remaining rope in his truck, as a piece was cut directly from what remained. However, the rope on her hands couldn’t be directly matched because the ends were too frayed. In addition, Dennis admitted that the scarf used to strangle Sarah had come from his truck and it belonged to him.
At the end of the trial, the evidence against Dennis relied on three things: his papers being found in the driveway, the location where his truck was found and his presence in the woods where her body was found, and lastly, the rope and the scarf that had been used to bind and kill Sarah. After eight days, both the defense and prosecution rested their case, and the jury went into deliberation. There were 10 hours of deliberation that included a break for jurors to get some sleep and come back in the morning. Dennis was found guilty on all five charges.
Dennis was subsequently sentenced to serve concurrent life sentences for each of the murder convictions and 20 years for each of the three remaining counts (two counts of gross sexual misconduct and one count of kidnapping). In this case, the guilty verdict and sentence to life in prison was not the end. Maine does not have the death penalty, but they also do not allow parole for life in prison; a life sentence in Maine is truly for the rest of your life.
The trial ended, and Sarah’s family as well as most of the local community that had been following the news coverage was relieved that the monster who had killed her was finally behind bars. However, people who knew Dennis and others who had noticed holes in the case against Dennis were feeling shocked by the verdict. Dennis’s friends, family, and other locals who had heard the story simply could not let this rest. They quickly organized into a group that called themselves Trial and Error. Within a few months, there were over 400 members and financial contributors. They began running fundraisers to help with the cost of a future appeal. As the defense now had more evidence and time to reflect on things that had been sprung on them in the courtroom, they began to work at picking apart the evidence of the prosecution.
Now, as we said before, time of death played a major role in the evidence used to try to prove Dennis was innocent. The coroner had testified that her most likely time of death was 30 to 36 hours before he performed the autopsy at 2:00 p.m. on Friday. However, that would have put her time of death between 2:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. Thursday morning. At this point, Dennis was either already with the police or back at his house with his wife. The state never filed anything officially stating the time of death; this is absent from her autopsy report, which is pretty unusual. The only date or time noted was “found on 7/8/88.” This is extremely odd.
When supporters of Dennis brought these autopsy findings to other professionals in the state to ask their opinions about time of death, they came to a different conclusion. One even suggested that given her age and the heat, the symptoms described could mean that she had died just 8 to 24 hours before the autopsy, not nearly 48 hours. One of the factors that contributed to the assumption that she died on July 6 were the hot dogs still in her stomach. Typically, your stomach is empty three hours after eating, but other experts said her digestion likely would have stopped because of the extreme fear she was in. So even though that was her last meal eaten at noon on July 6, due to the way she was being tortured, it’s possible that the food could have still been in her stomach many hours later.
During future appeals, the judge refused to take written testimony from two board-certified forensic experts. These experts both agreed that the time of death based on the autopsy could not have happened before Dennis was in the company of the police. In addition, rigor mortis had a shorter timeline in the case of a violent or traumatic death; there was no skin slippage, marbling pattern, or greenish discoloration of the abdominal wall. This discoloration should have been happening after 48 hours. The eyes were still filled with fluid; there was no dehydration as there should have been if she died on July 6. There was also no clouding of the pupils, and the maggots found in her mouth and eyes were still very small at only 1 to 2 millimeters. By 48 hours, they should have been much larger than 1 to 2 millimeters. In the autopsy report, there was also no evidence of any discoloration or degeneration of any internal organs; the pancreas and the brain should have begun to deteriorate and degenerate before the 48-hour mark. With the ambient temperature being between the mid-60s and high 80s, the body should have had clear post-mortem decomposition. There was absolutely zero evidence of decomposition.
In addition, after his initial trial, a lawsuit would be filed to obtain the notes made by the officers claiming that Dennis had confessed to them. The actual notes only record him saying things like, “I didn’t do it,” “I couldn’t have done it,” and “How could I kill her?” However, when the officer read directly from his notes in court, he said, “Why did I kill her?” The actual notes said, “How could I kill her?” and then “How could” was crossed out and replaced with “Why did.” This changed his statement from a perspective of confusion on how that could be possible or what the motive could have been. In addition, when he was supposed to be reading directly from his notes, he said the phrase, “It must have been someone inside me doing this,” which became a huge cornerstone of the confessions they claimed to hear from Dennis. However, the defense was surprised to find that quote wasn’t written anywhere on the paper the officer was reading from.
Dennis’s first attempt at an appeal was denied in June of 1990. He tried again by appealing to the Supreme Court; they refused to even hear the case. Two and a half years after his conviction, he filed another appeal with the state, asking for a new trial based on some leads and witnesses that had been dug up by the same private investigator, Ron Moren. One witness even claimed to see Doug Senecal driving Dennis’s truck on the day of Sarah’s murder. It’s also important to note that Doug also drove a truck that was red and white. In addition, many of these witnesses had actually come forward to the police at the time of Sarah’s murder, but their statements had not been given to the defense or the prosecution. Much of this had been kept intentionally out of the trial either by the judge or the prosecution. Even after hearing all of this, the judge determined again that Dennis would not be allowed another trial because there wasn’t enough new evidence to warrant it.
Throughout the months leading up to the trial, Nancy and Dennis had discussed what would happen if he was convicted. She has maintained through the years that she believes Dennis is innocent. In their discussions, Dennis made it clear that he did not want her life ruined because he was behind bars. After the direct appeal failed, Nancy divorced Dennis and sold the farm to go back to her family in Colorado. She later remarried and even had her new husband meet Dennis. After the couple had their first child, they stopped being in contact because both Nancy and her new husband felt that this was not beneficial to their new children.
It has now been 36 years since Dennis was convicted. He has filed numerous appeals over the years, and more and more accurate DNA testing has become available. His original goal was to have the DNA under Sarah’s fingernails tested. He did eventually achieve that goal, however, at that point, the fingernails had changed hands several times, a lot of time had passed, and there was barely any blood left to test. They were able to determine that there was male blood under her nails that did not belong to Dennis. However, the state continued to refuse Dennis a new trial, claiming that DNA could have been from any number of sources that weren’t her killer. The DNA was tested against many of the other people they suggested, such as the officers on the scene, who were all ruled out. Finally, they blamed their own coroner’s office for contaminating the evidence.
After the initial trial, Dennis and his team asked about the hairs found on her body in the rape kit; both of these items were destroyed after the trial, so the defense was never able to pursue testing on those pieces. One would assume those items would have been a better DNA sample to connect this case to the true killer, whether that’s Dennis or someone else.
In 1995, Dennis’s lawyer, Tom Connelly, made an unusual move. He told Dennis that he was going to step down and that Dennis should file an appeal stating that his counsel had been insufficient. After all, he felt that during questioning he had failed Dennis by missing the major inconsistency about the time of death. However, this attempt at an appeal also failed.
Later, Dennis suggested a DNA test from a new source now that technology had moved along as much as it had. He suggested testing her clothes for DNA and requested that Sarah’s shirt, bra, and the scarf that had strangled her be tested for DNA using a scraping method instead of a swabbing method. The lab was able to identify that there were two other male DNA contributors to most items; however, a full DNA profile could not be determined due to the age of the samples and the limited quantity. They were unable to rule Dennis out as a contributor to most samples, but they were able to rule out Doug Senecal as a contributor.
When the facts of the crime were later sent to an independent criminal profiler, he returned with a profile that did not match Dennis at all. He suspects that this murder was committed by someone who had a history of disturbing or suspicious behavior, and may have a history of harassment, stalking, being a peeping Tom, or other assaults. In addition, this would likely be a person who has withdrawn from society, possibly in a romantic relationship, though it is unlikely. Furthermore, this crime was not typical of someone who had committed their very first crime; it was much too violent for that. His profile did not match Dennis at all in that profiler’s opinion.
We would like to quickly address one more time the most damning piece of evidence used against Dennis: the papers in the driveway of the Hankle home. There were nearly 180 items in total inventoried out of Dennis’s truck, everything from self-help books to bottle caps. The statistical chances that only two of those items out of 180 fall out of his messy truck in a struggle, both of which had his name on them, are very slim. In fact, statistically, the chances of that happening are 1.57 out of 10,000. In other words, it is 99.9% unlikely.
In April of 2010, 21 years after his conviction, Dennis lost hope of ever being found innocent. He managed to smuggle a large amount of prescription medication into the prison and attempted to take his own life. He was brought to the hospital, where he survived. After that incident, Dennis rallied and has continued to file appeals and fight to say he is innocent and fight for further testing.
During one of the meetings between Dennis’s team and the judge, Assistant District Attorney Eric Wright came into the room and said something to the effect of, “I don’t know why we’re doing this; I have his confession on tape now.” He was referring to the video-recorded psychological evaluation. At no point during the evaluation did Dennis confess, however. That comment was enough to change the tone with the judge; assuming that ADA Wright was correct, the judge was no longer willing to continue the conversation with Dennis or his defense team.
Now, it’s worth noting that Eric Wright passed away in 2022 after what his obituary describes as a long but valiant fight with Parkinson’s disease. ADA Wright’s conversation with the judge took place at some point in 2010. We could not find any information citing when he started experiencing symptoms of Parkinson’s, but Parkinson’s can cause memory and cognition problems. Ultimately, we may never know what influenced Eric Wright to falsely attest to the judge that he had Dennis’s confession on tape when no such recording existed.
Dennis’s most recent application for appeal is still open as of the date of this recording. In 2024, Dennis is once again requesting more DNA testing; this time, his team wants to utilize a new Wet-Vac system that is much more thorough than scraping or swabbing. Their hope is that this test will reveal that there was another identifiable male there who was not Dennis.
Now, another point that Dennis has fought for was a wrongful conviction claim because his double jeopardy rights were violated. Double jeopardy refers to the rule that the same person cannot be convicted more than once for the same crime. Dennis argues that being convicted of both intentional or knowing murder and depraved indifference murder should not be possible; in his opinion, that’s two separate murder convictions for the death of one person.
The last thing we would like to bring up before we close with some words about Sarah is the possibility that Sarah was the victim of a serial killer. One of the theories is that Sarah was killed by serial killer Richard Mark Evonitz. Richard Evonitz died on June 27, 2002, after he took his own life when police cornered him. They had been pursuing Richard for days after he attacked Cara Robinson, a 15-year-old girl. After his death, the police went back to his apartment as part of their investigation. They found hundreds of inappropriate images of young girls, including a photo of himself assaulting one. They found a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs that he used to bind his victims, and also found a stash of trophies—a collection of underwear from the girls he had harmed.
The FBI began calling all the states that he had lived in to see if they had any unsolved assaults or murders from the times that he had been living there. It just so happens that he was living in Portland, Maine, for the two months surrounding Sarah’s murder. He shopped for groceries exclusively at the Brunswick Naval Air Station commissary, which puts him just a few miles from Bowdoin, Maine. The FBI called the state of Maine, but Sarah’s case was not presented to them as it was not considered unsolved. As of 2022, Evonitz’s team was still fighting to have Sarah investigated as one of his possible victims. Since his death, at least one of Richard Evonitz’s murders was linked to another wrongly convicted man, and he has since been released.
Sarah’s funeral was held the Tuesday after her disappearance. Over 200 family members, friends, and neighbors attended the service at Lisbon United Methodist Church. Her casket was closed and adorned with over 30 bouquets of flowers, her photograph, and a stuffed koala. Sarah was buried at Mount Auburn Cemetery, just across the bridge in Auburn, Maine, under a headstone adorned with images of a teddy bear, bicycle, and sporting equipment. At the bottom of her headstone are the words:
When a little child departs,
We who are left behind must realize
God loves children,
Angels are hard to find.
We want to take a minute to recognize the anguish that Sarah’s family has gone through over the years. We recently covered the case of Jessica Lunsford, whose killer died in prison just two years later. One of the sentiments we heard was that it was much easier for the families of victims when they are not in constant fear of an overturned conviction. Dennis has never stopped fighting to have his conviction appealed; that must be incredibly draining to Sarah’s family. Much of the coverage of this case focuses on Dennis because he has been much more public and vocal than Sarah’s family, but that does not mean that they aren’t feeling the anguish every time his name is back in the news. We wish them so much peace as they continue to mourn the life that Sarah never got to live.
We truly hope that justice was done in this case, or if it wasn’t, that it will be soon. If Dennis is truly innocent, not only was this a severe injustice to him, but also to Sarah’s family as well as the community members who were left with a predator and murderer living in their midst. With modern DNA testing, over 20% of Americans have taken commercial DNA tests, and many crimes are being solved by tapping into that huge pool of data. Maybe this will be one of them.
